


So I stayed in the Darkness With You.

by 9_of_Clubs



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types, Hannibal Lecter Tetralogy - Thomas Harris, Red Dragon - Thomas Harris
Genre: (Will misses him too), Angst, Future Fic, Hannibal writes Will letters because he misses him, Loneliness, Longing, M/M, Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-15 23:49:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1323844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9_of_Clubs/pseuds/9_of_Clubs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Clarice goes to see Hannibal in jail, she goes straight to Will. Or, my take on how Will is going to fit into the future of the series, plus angst and feels.</p><p>--</p><p>Her shoulders shrug, she’s not sure exactly, exactly, what she thinks Will could do, but victims aside, there’s really no one else. Jack counts himself out, and that’s it, no one more alive. “I need a way in.” She says in the end, simple truth. “I need to know if there’s a way in, and you’re the only one I think has any idea.”</p><p>He laughs at that, an empty, ugly, laugh that’s exhausted, lined with old pain. “Sure.” His gaze is on her now, and she takes a step back despite herself, he’s not dangerous, she knows, was proven innocent of every charge, “because our relationship went, oh so well.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Should Like to Think You Are.

She drives to the country after classes are done for the day, out to where the roads get dusty and winding, empty but for the occasional chirp of a bird and brush of a squirrel. It reminds her of home, distantly, in a way that makes her want to turn right around and drive back to the familiar concrete walls of her dorm. But she doesn’t, if she could walk through the gates of the hospital for the insane, make her way unguarded and unprotected, past lewd shrieks and meaningless murmurs, make her way to _him,_ certainly this visit, somewhere safe, she can handle. The ghosts of her past have danced closer to her these past few days, summoned by a smooth accented tongue, but she brushes them away with the bright headlights of her car. This isn’t a social call and, in the end, has almost nothing to do with her at all. 

He’s not what she expected when he answers the door, but then, little about this case has been. Will Graham had looked taller in the article clippings Google had provided, in the mug shot from the FBI database, looked stronger then, more determined. The files on him had been carefully locked though, that’s why she’s here after all. Because other than the sensationalist articles of the tabloids, she’s had nothing to go on, her better instincts telling not to ask Jack. Well, nothing except a small envelope that had been left on her desk with neat script on it, wishing her good luck, asking that she be careful. Beverly Katz, the signature had echoed in her ears as she’d emptied out the contents of it, had found pictures of Will Graham from before the Lecter case, teaching in a classroom much like her own, surrounded by dogs on a comfortable porch, and the last one, deep in conversation, but smiling, an easy calm gracing his face, one absent from all the other pictures, as he’d looked up at one Hannibal Lecter, dressed to the nines, a small smile of his own playing at the corners of his mouth.

“Clarice Starling.” She says now as he looks at her, bewildered, her badge coming up to the side of her head. For a moment, she thinks he’s going to slam the door in her face, the quiet hurt behind his eyes raging to life, but then just as suddenly it dies again and he moves aside, almost grudgingly, as though letting someone into his home requires him to force himself. She doesn’t comment and follows. Silence reigns after the thud of the door.

“I- I’ve been assigned - “ She starts and then shakes her head, lets the lies about a profile and housekeeping die on her tongue, Will will see right through them, her gut whispers in her ear, it’s that which has gotten her into this much trouble already, so she might as well see this through. “You’ve heard of Buffalo Bill, haven’t you?” 

They’re in his kitchen, he sits, she stands. The searching look he gives her is reminiscent of the one she’d felt outside the cell, as though he can see everything about her with a glance, can tell just by looking, everything she wants most to hide. 

“I can’t do that anymore.” His gaze points down to the table, his fingers are clenched into each other on top of the table, knuckles gone white. “Go back to Jack and tell him I can’t… that I won’t.” The words creep out of his throat as though they’re strangling him. “He shouldn’t have sent you.”

There’s an inexplicable ache that thrums through her as she shakes her head. “That’s uh not exactly why I’m here.” A pause and then. “And Jack didn’t send me, I just thought...it might be important, would help me understand. There aren’t exactly many people I could go to.” She could barely even imagine there to be one. Will looks at her uncomprehendingly and she realizes she’s left more or less everything out.

“Doctor Lecter.” She tries to say it firmly, bravely, like he’s not wormed his way into her mind, like she doesn’t half feel as though even mentioning him might be enough to make him aware of this meeting. Her voice wavers a little anyway, but she doesn’t think Will can hear her, not really. At the name, his head snaps up sharply and his eyes lose focus, far away suddenly, for all their power. “Jack thinks he knows something about the case, he sent me over to the hospital…” She pushes onward all the same. “to try and, I don’t know, surprise something out of him I guess.” Her lips curl in a half smile. “Almost worked.” 

He’s still staring out, but his voice drags from his lips hoarsely. “So what is it you need from me, then. You think I can get it out of him?” There’s bitterness nestled deep, she can feel its sharp, familiar, tang on her lips, underneath there’s something like a layer of envy, she doesn’t know what to make of that.

Her shoulders shrug, she’s not sure exactly, exactly, what she thinks Will could do, but victims aside, there’s really no one else. Jack counts himself out, and that’s it, no one more alive. “I need a way in.” She says in the end, simple truth. “I need to know if there’s a way in, and you’re the only one I think has any idea.”

He laughs at that, an empty, ugly, laugh that’s exhausted, lined with old pain. “Sure.” His gaze is on her now, and she takes a step back despite herself, he’s not dangerous, she knows, was proven innocent of every charge, “because our relationship went, oh so well.” 

“It went.” She answers back, surprising herself with her own firmness, this is hard for him, she reminds her mouth, but people’s lives are at stake and no one knows Lecter better. “That’s more than most can say.” Certainly more than she managed to do today, Hannibal’s sharp mind poking through the ruse, but she hadn’t known anyway, that she was participating, not that she’d have done much better if she had. “And if he knows something, Mr. Graham, we need to know it too. I don’t think I have to tell you that.”

“No.” Will is standing now, turning his back on her and heading out to the living room, “No I don’t think you do.”

She thinks if he’d wanted her to follow, he’d have invited her along, so she waits quietly in her spot. A part of her wants to look around, to dig deeper, but she’s already intruding enough on this stranger’s private territory. He’s one of them, she should show some respect, she doesn’t let even her gaze pry farther.

When Will comes back he’s balancing three big binders in his hands and he sets them down on the table and looks at her and that’s invitation enough. She moves closer as he straightens, her hands going out to run along the surface of the first one.

“What’s in them?” Her voice is quiet as her fingers grasp the cover, ready to pull the binder open but still waiting for a permission of sorts.

Will’s shoulders shrug, an amusement of sorts coloring his voice, a strained kind of affection. “Letters.” 

“Letters?” She echos, bewildered before he can say anything else, and he nods as she pulls the thick plastic back, sees neat handwriting lining a page slipped under a sheet protector. 

“Yeah, letters. Well -” Their eyes meet before he pulls his gaze away, but long enough for the self deprecation to slide through the connection. “Well, copies of letters. You can read them if you want.” He might have tried for flippancy, but it doesn’t go over too well. “There’s nothing in them really, if I thought they’d have been useful to anyone but Chilton.” He spits the name out and she can’t help but warm to him, a low hum of commiseration falling from her lips. “I’d have turned them over.”

She wants to tell him he probably should have turned them over anyway, but something about the shift in his stance makes her think it’s a useless fight. And she’s not here to search Will Graham’s house, she’s here to meet Hannibal Lecter in the safest possible way.

It’s unsurprising then when Will adds, “You can read them here. It … it has to be here.” 

She gives him a half nod and sits, not yet reading, angling up to look at him. “He wrote you letters?” It’s not that she’s surprised really, it just seems like such a frank, innocent, way of communication. There must be hundreds between the binders, more like Hannibal is a soldier gone away to war than a killer who once put this man on death row. 

“Well, he can’t call.” Will’s face twists, something a little less ugly now, the faded, painful, fondness still there. “And I won’t… I won’t come, so he writes, yes.”

“How often?” She asks, but he only jerks his head at the binders. 

“Often enough.”

Maybe it was a stupid question, she sits down and pulls the first one towards her. At first she feels Will’s eyes on her, and that it makes it hard to start, but then he moves to the side, fumbles around boiling water and pulling down a mug, she sees him out of the corner of her eye. The kettle whistles, but he doesn’t offer her any, not out of rudeness, she thinks, he feels as though he’s gone somewhere else entirely, fingers clattering on the glass. But she certainly doesn’t have time to waste, so shuts him out and reads. 

The letters, she decides fall into three categories. Mudane, scientific, and something else that she has no good word for...Quiet, maybe, a sharp, frozen, tone to them that stands her hairs on end, but draws her in despite herself. The first are descriptive, dull details of the goings on at the institution, the second, brilliant and technical, drafts, she considers, of all the papers he’s published throughout his incarceration. But it’s the last that hold what she’s seeking. As close to despairing, she considers, as Lecter is likely to get. Lonely, if she had to find one word...Not perhaps conventionally, but there’s a brittle kind of exhaustion that sweeps through the elegant script, a longing, and a selfish one. As close to despairing as he’s likely to get and maybe as close to human. 

_They won’t speak of you when I inquire,_ the words scroll across the page, _so I am forced to surmise you are doing well by the lack of any news. Surely, if you had come to some harm, it would appear in this article or that one. Our good friend would not be able to resist imparting such information, I am quite certain. He is so very reliable, in some fashions._

_I am happy to think you have not returned to looking after what occurred with Francis - I have never approved of that way of life for you, as you well know. You can, however, be stubborn to the extreme, over some matters. For instance, I thought perhaps after two hundred, you might visit, or on the anniversary of the trial, maybe on my birthday, or yours, but here we have passed three hundred, as well as all of those days, and still your absence resounds. I do not blame you for not wanting to return to these halls, they are rather dreadful, but I, you see, am quite incapable of going elsewhere. I do apologize for that._ She senses movement behind her, but not fully, her brain occupied by the flow of the words, by the quiet, hidden, things, they express, she can’t tear her eyes from the page. 

_I do apologize for that. Perhaps when the next round number comes along, perhaps you are not counting at all. I should like to think you are._

_Yours,_

_Hannibal_

“Poetic, isn’t it?” 

She jumps in her chair, her heart stopping and then racing, breath coming out in uneven spurts. He’s looking at the letter, dated not too long ago, and whatever was hidden in his eyes before is broken. Her heart thumps, because there’s only one way to do this, one path she sees laid clearly before her. 

“He wants to see you.” The words are scarcely above a whisper, the agent in her feels the thrill of discovery. “Will - “ She’s close to losing her resolve. “Will, you could - “ He’s shaking his head. “Will, people are dying, he knows something, he - “ 

“No. No, Agent Starling, no.” 

“I could tell him you’d see him if he talks.” She doesn’t listen to the protests though, only turns, looks at him, pushes on, because she’s not just a stupid girl from the country, she’s smart and she has intuition. And this, this is important. “If he doesn’t, you wouldn’t have to go. But I think,” she motions at the letters, “I think he would. Whatever game he’s playing, whatever he knows, it doesn’t matter to him. He just wants his amusement, doesn’t he?”

Above her, Will has gone very white. 

“But that doesn’t matter in the face of this. There’s feeling here Will and nowhere, nowhere els -”

“Stop.” He grinds out, cuts her off. “You wanted to see him, I let you, this isn’t my responsibility anymore, he isn’t my -”

“Yeah.” She shoots back. “Yeah, I did and the only bit of him that isn’t immune to giving a damn, as far as I can tell anyway, is you. And I don’t have time to go digging up another miracle, I know you want to help those poor girls out. Besides - ” She pauses, breathes, and then says it, even though she’s fully prepared to regret it. “I think you want to see him too.” 

Will’s face goes sallow at that, and rage bursts through it like the opening of a flood gate, red and then white, darker and darker. She’s closed the binders and gotten up as he stands there, ready to leave, ready to run, half muttering apologies, but then he speaks, stops her halfway out the door.

“You get him to promise.” His voice is thin and crumpling, and she feels the anger might not be at her all. “Give you the information up front, and I’ll think about it. But don’t you - “ He’s shaking and she thinks she ought to maybe help him, but he draws away when she takes a step back in. “Don’t you dare tell, Jack.”


	2. An Amazing Feat of Perception.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarice goes back, armed with her offer. From the claws of the beast to the pit of the snake and back.

She begs another chance off Jack and pushes past Chilton without ceremony. Last visit, she wasn’t ready, she had no idea what to expect and she had nothing on her side, but it’s different now. It’s different and another girl’s disappeared in the night. 

Her breath still catches a little as she passes through the final door and makes her way down the long hallway. It’s ridiculous, this hallway, that he’s at the very end of it, it only heightens the drama, makes him seem bigger than he is, makes the trepidation build. Will’s echos are beside her though, and Hannibal’s own neat lines of text push her forward; he’s a monster, but not entirely, and she only needs one tiny, little, speck of humanity, she just needs him to want something enough to let her alone and tell her what she needs. He must want, not even he could never long for anything.

Her heart is pumping though, by the time she finally makes it to the cell, the blood rushing to her head. 

“Hello, Clarice.” 

He’s standing there, head tilted, entertainment splintering through his gaze, but she can’t let him get to her, can’t let him start.

“Will you tell me what you know.” She doesn’t put everything out there, not yet, always worth an attempt before showing all her cards.

He looks at her, almost disappointed for a moment. “I would have expected something a bit more engaging, with all that determined walking you were doing just now.” The lilting mockery of the accent digs beneath her skin, but she ignores the barbs. “It would seem I find myself mistaken.

“Another girl was taken.” She has the files in her grasp, his eyes flit to them, but then away. His curiosity less precious than her pleas. “You know something, you could save her.” 

“And what is she to me?” He moves away from the glass, sits at his chair, back straight, profile to her, looking as though he were carved from a mountainside. “Will she save me, if I save her?” The mockery is stronger now, his tongue flitting around the word save as though it is a joke only he can really understand, something amusing in this balance of life and death. 

She stays quiet and he waits a beat and another before turning the weight of his gaze back onto her. “Well Clarice, I’m waiting, explain to me, you are the one who - “

“I could get you what you want.” She blurts out, wildly almost, cutting through his words, because she can sense the build of them, the tightening of a bow, an arrow ready to loose. “If you tell me, I could get you what you want.”

He tuts at her softly, eyes a touch more narrow. “It is rude to interject Clarice, I think you are very well aware of that. As for your words.” He shakes his head. “What is that you dream I might desire enough to tell you what you wish to know.”

She looks up at him, right back into his eyes now. She sees nothing there that isn’t sharp and hard, no trace of the letters she’d read last night, nor the almost soft smile of the man in the photograph talking to Will. She wonders if he was like this all along or if the loss of freedom has hardened him on top of everything else, or perhaps the loss of something else... It shouldn’t matter to her, one way or the other, it doesn’t.

“He said he would reconsider.” 

She sees the words process, sees the infinitesimal blink that is just a beat out of place before he is ice again, if anything fiercer. But for him, even a blink is a tell, she’s come to realize, so well put together, everything in place, everything controlled. For him a blink may as well be a tantrum from anyone else. She’s not surprised he doesn’t ask who or what, though the chill of his seeming omniscience crawls up her spine all over again . In the end, she tries to reason with herself, how many options could there possibly be. He doesn’t _know,_ it’s just logic. 

She thinks he sniffs at the air, but perhaps it’s only her imagination.

“Did good Jack send you there as well -” His words are soft, but the fear in her ratchets up higher than it has been. “From the claws of the beast to the pit of the snake and back, I see. It must be quite the excitement for you. ” 

She wants to protest, Jack didn’t send her to Will, he hadn’t sent her back here either, but he’s trying to make her angry, and though she flushes, her fingers digging into her fists, she fights not to lose focus. 

“I know that you want to see him.” Clarity, directness, no detours, no letting his words derail her. 

“Do I?” Hannibal’s lip is curled in the mockery of a smile and for a heart stopping instant, she’s almost positive that this was a mistake, that she was wrong, but the script is etched behind her eyes and she nods her head, forces breath into her lungs. 

“Yes. More than you want to keep me dangling over this information. I know, I saw.” 

“And so you understand perfectly? An amazing feat of perception Clarice.” He’s tall at his full height now, rising from the chair, looming closer to the glass. “Perhaps you saw nothing at all, a ruse, or even better a trap. Perhaps you thought you saw but instead, you only looked.” 

“No.” She stands her ground, though she’s shaking now, slightly, at the tips of her fingers, just behind her knees. “No, I don’t think so. You want to see him -” She tilts her head, shoves her hands inside her pockets. “and more than that, he wants to see you too.”

The silence that sweeps in to the take the place of their voices is deafening, crushing in its weight and Hannibal only studies her. In an instant, he has pulled himself back, his voice is elegant again, soothing. “You imagine you speak the truth, much as you imagined Jack wanted nothing more than a psychological profile during your last visit. But again, you find yourself mistaken.” It’s her he’s apologetic for, her naivety, her innocence, but she finds herself feeling as though she can see past it, senses in the words, a reluctance to believe. _But perhaps she’s only imagining,_ she pushes the voice away, listens because he’s still speaking and there will be no second chances.

“If he wished to visit, he would do so.” There’s a strange sort of certainty in his voice, and she finds it at odds with the letters he’s written, that he writes, so many of them, relentlessly. She can’t really understand the relationship between the two men, but she feels the faintest brushes of pity for both ends. 

“No offense, Doctor Lecter.” He seems caught a bit off guard by the sudden casual tone that fills her voice, she’s a bit too, but doesn’t stop herself.. “But I don’t think there’s a person on earth who would come visit after all that crap, not even if they wanted to.” 

She takes a step forward herself, and he’s paying attention now, she wants to revel in it, in this victory, but nothing would lose him quicker. “Give him a reason.”

“ I thought, Clarice -” There’s something playing through his gaze that she can’t name, on anyone else she might have been tempted to call it hope, but it’s darker that, far less pure, something like desire, like hunger. It shades out his face, makes the hollows starker. “that I had already informed you that you were mistaken.” 

She opens her mouth, not exactly sure of what she’s going to say, but he continues.

“I do not believe that Will wishes to come. I can agree that he would say such things, to help you with your investigation, if he is in a charitable mood, or simply to make you leave, if he is not. But I have not a single reason to trust your promises, but that you have made them. And Clarice,” He waits until she’s looking at him fully, their gazes locked. “I do not think I can place much weight on that.” It stings, but she refuses to break the connection, no different from what she’d faced the last time, but she knows that he wants this, that she has something, if not something enough. “Perhaps in your romantic notions, there is some redemption to be won here, some storyline to see through. But I assure you, I find myself quite redeemed, and Will finds himself far. Your pleas and your dead bodies will not change that. This is beyond your understanding Clarice.” The menace in his voice carries again. “Do not involve yourself, it will not end kindly for you.” 

“I’m not scared.” She grits back, and then shakes her head. “Not scared enough to stop, anyway.” She corrects the lie she’s sure he won’t be able to resist. “and maybe I’m not the only one. Are you scared to find out that you’re wrong?” She twirls the thought in her head. “Or maybe, that you’re right?” 

He smiles again, a distortion of his lips and cheekbones. “I am not frightened, Clarice. I have never been.” 

“Now who’s lying, Doctor Lecter. Everyone’s been frightened, there’s no shame in it.” His eyes, if possible, darken further, and she wonders if she’s unexpectedly touched on something, tentatively she pushes. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d lie to me.”

“Sometimes, there is only shame.” And then just as she begins to wonder what he could possibly be talking about, eager curiosity stretching out its long fingers, it’s as though the rug is pulled from under her, Hannibal changes his tone and the conversation. Her thoughts strain to follow. “You believe you can convince Will to accompany you here, then I should like to see that after all.” 

Go back, her mind screams, craving to hear more of what makes this man fear, eager to see what she glimpsed in that moment in full, but it’s a trap he’s set, what she wants against what is necessary. She curses him silently and he once again the picture of calm, only looks pleasantly back.

She swallows and presses her luck. “I need something now.” She finds more force in her than she believed possible.“Before I go back to him, you have to prove that you actually know something.”

Hannibal’s low tut is unnerving and he lets the silence linger long past where she’s comfortable, her own mind screaming at her not to bother, to go back and attempt to reason with Will instead, but she owes the retired agent this respect, to carry out what he has asked of her as his price. Still, the pressure cuts into her, presses her ribs together, steals her breath, and just when she thinks she might have forgotten how to inhale altogether, he tilts his head consideringly, side to side, and nods. It’s strange to see a kind of light washing across his face, stark features warmed by what she can only label as affection as he chuckles lowly. “Not very interested in making this game easy for you, was he, Clarice?” Affection and pride. 

She shrugs her shoulders and he watches her for another moment, the light ebbing slowly away again. “Have you looked in their throats, Clarice, those women whom you care so much for? Have you examined them quite as thoroughly as you should have?” A different kind of shading is gleaming in him now, hungry to torment her once more.

She shakes her head mutely, mind beginning to race with the thoughts of what she might have missed, and his lips curl, the superiority that clings to him bearing down on her heavily. 

“Well perhaps increased vigilance will find you the answers you seek.” Hannibal inclines his head and turns away from her, he has given her something, she knows, but not nearly everything, likely not enough to truly help, but all the same, more than before.

“Have a lovely afternoon, Clarice, you may come seeking the rest when you have proven yourself worthy.” He sits at his desk and pulls a paper towards him, long fingers wrapping around a pencil, she swears he’s humming under his breath, her existence already forgotten.

She watches him for a moment more and then begins the long journey out, unable to help feeling that despite everything, she has lost and he has won.


	3. And You Are Caught.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And you are caught, and I have come to visit you.

The footsteps to Hannibal’s cell echo around him like death knolls. He has promised himself, with every fiber of his being, with the greatest of sincerities, that he will not take them, not now, not ever. He still repeats the words he had told Hannibal once upon a time, like a mantra, lips forming their hollow shapes in the night to remind him.  _I won’t visit you when you’re caught._  And he’s stood by those words, has come close but once...After a phone call about a different killer, Hannibal’s voice almost unrecognizable in its shock, and then cold in its realizations of intent, but in the end, keeping Will on the line, just long enough for some of the sleek purring to return, had won out over pride. Chilton, he can imagine, hadn’t warned him who might be on the other side, had bought him a marginal lead with the element of surprise.

 _I am alone. And I miss you._ The last words in the conversation had been strangely raw, for a moment only the guise of his onetime friend had lingered in front of his eyes and his fingers had clutched the cord until they were white, until they were just short of bloody, a desire to strangle himself with it growing in his chest.

 _I know._  He’d somehow managed to say, the Tooth Fairy case and everything but Hannibal vanishing from his mind.  _And that breaks my heart. But I won’t visit you._ He’d hung up the phone at that and collapsed in a heap. Three weeks later Hannibal punished him for his stubbornness with the knife of another. As the blade pierced his cheek, he thought he might deserve exactly this, for breaking both their hearts. There was a wild grief in Dolarhyde as he’d attacked, and through it, they were all connected, each mourning the loss of what might have been.

But even after that, the momentary weakness it caused, that Hannibal, no matter how far away, seemed to sense, his letters ceasing, their connection faltering just as Will yearned for it most, he had been strong, had not come, had opened the door a thousand times, but not allowed more than a step. And eventually, the bitter desire had been choked back to simple numbness. The lurch of the storm in him wrought by Hannibal's voice, hushed. The letters too, resumed, after a fashion, though quieter than before. Hannibal’s voice growing faint in the darkness, the loneliness resonating. Sometimes, there was only a sentence, written out, again and again over weeks, thirty, maybe forty times total, with nothing more.

_I am alone. And I miss you._

Ever a glutton for punishment, or perhaps selfishly, or perhaps in penance, he has read every word of every letter, a ritual of unshed tears and the quiet throb of old scars. A letter received, read, copied, and tucked away. But always, always with the mantra at the end. Important to go forward, to go on, to go anywhere but there.

But  _there_  here, he is now. And the narrow hallway, Clarice’s footsteps trailing behind him, do not seem to explain to him why. Hannibal has given some information, with time, he would likely give more, out of boredom if nothing else. Will might have told Clarice that, but he hadn’t. He suspects that she knows though, and insists on his involvement all the same. A different Will might have understood why she might want to help a tired, old, man move past his demons, but this one can’t fathom it, and wonders, with narrowed eyes, now and again, which tired, old, man she seeks to help at all.  _I’m not good,_  he feels the sudden urge to stop and tell her, going so far as to pause, her questioning eyes turning to him.  _I’m not safe._ He looks back at her, she doesn’t blink. _And neither is he. Fly away now._

Maybe, he’s noble. Maybe that’s why, Hannibal wouldn’t have told her anything if she hadn’t caught his interest, maybe he’s trying to defend her and turn the gaze away. A dark part of his mind laughs the truth at him.  _Or maybe you’re jealous._  It whispers and he turns his cheek to the floor. Clarice is still silent, still watching.  _She gets to see him, can break the loneliness instead. Did you think he would miss you forever?_

“Will?” She asks finally, and he raises his eyes, shakes his head and walks through the thoughts, the silence swallowing them again. In his heart, he can feel the approach, the emanating tendrils that reach out now and pull him forward with a kind of hypnotism, as though this has become a dream somewhere along the line, nothing quite as real as it should be.

“Are you alone?” He asks the glass without looking, without lifting his eyes. He can see Hannibal in his mind, knows that he is there, does not need the image itself yet to confirm. In his thoughts, Hannibal is as tall and polished as ever, leaning easily against the side of a bookshelf, a well fit suit falling around him gracefully, fitting like a glove. That will be the last time he holds this image of Hannibal unmarred,  _his_  Hannibal. When he turns his eyes, he will be speaking to someone that belongs to the darkness, purely. That he has created with his own hands, with his distance. “Do you miss me?”

“Yes.” Hannibal’s voice floats towards him, like an instrument in need of tuning, too sharp now, and then too low, the notes all wrong, but it’s beautiful in its decay, all the same. “And that breaks my heart.” He pauses. “But I am caught and you’ve come to visit me.” The last of their script. “So perhaps, I am less alone now, a confused ray of sunlight filtering in, thinking the halcyon days have returned.”

He feels Clarice behind him now, with an acute certainty, just as he senses Hannibal, an odd amusement filtering from her, as though they are ridiculous, and it somehow makes it just a hair easier, the recognition of absurdity, to open his eyes and turn his face.

Hannibal is different in the prison cell and yet the same and he does not burden Will with the weight of his eyes, not yet, as the other explores his body with his own. In the garish prison suit, he carries himself like a god still, straight and unyielding to the forces that would tear him. But there’s an odd slump, just a minute one, perhaps one that none but Will can see, to the slant of his shoulders, nothing but the hint of defeat. And he looks raw somehow, savage, a tempest only just contained.

Will finds that it hurts, somewhere deep in his stomach, that Hannibal is gaunter than before, just this side of starved, that the shadows of his cheeks are hollower and the bags under his eyes darker. He looks like an ill used hero, his hair longer, falling across his face. Will supposes wryly there is no gel to be had in prison, no barbers to Hannibal’s liking.

“I always liked your hair long.” He murmurs without thinking, Clarice snorting behind him and the full weight of Hannibal’s gaze comes crashing into his, taking his breath away, before he knows what has happened. There’s a frigid ice to the first layer of emotion, emotion, a part of him laughs, so human, so fragile. But it’s there, and it’s cold, squeezes Will’s chest as he absorbs it, his empathy not allowing him to run and he doesn’t try. This is the layer that writes Will letters dripping with emptiness, with the chill of longing and the knowledge that what one wants is not what can be had. This is what Will has turned a part of Hannibal into with his absence, a glacier field, a barren expanse of snow, and Hannibal hates the cold, hates what it reminds him of, a searing pain in the arm, the screaming of a little girl. They all live here in the snow and ice of Will’s absence. Hannibal appears here like he is in the world, a jail uniform and gaunt, terrible, eyes. It’s dark here, but it’s melting.

They fall a level deeper.

The snow becomes woods, and the woods bleed red, are not anguished but angry, they want revenge, they want blood. They hate Will, but they hate Hannibal more, whisper of human attachment and the dangers of desire, remind Hannibal of the thrill of killing, of what is really important, art, transformation, beauty. Hannibal shifts into familiar form of the wendigo, horns growing from the black ooze that covers him, a cruel, scarlet smile and empty dull eyes. Vines squirrel out of the ground and wrap around Will’s feet, entrap him and the monster charges, the vision shifts again.

They are in a field now, a different one. The sky is blue and the sun shines, a gentle wind carries the scent of flowers, though none are evident, and the sound of a child’s laughter echoes through the air. Hannibal is facing away from him, face upturned to catch the rays of brightness, but shifts and smiles at his appearance in this place.

“Hello Will.”

He’s wearing a suit right out of his old wardrobe, his hair is trimmed, his body fit, and his voice is smooth and lilting. But it is not that which is important, but that it is Will that has brought him here, to this place inaccessible all on his own. That it is for Will and because of Will, because of his love for Will, that he has arrived here at all, pushed through everything else to show him this. Because this is what he feels most of all, what drives the longing, what solidifies everything else.

“Hello Doctor Lecter.”

He moves forward and touches Hannibal. The vision breaks.

When the jail appears again, the brightness blinked away, he realizes he’s pressed his fingers up to the glass, reaching, always reaching. Hannibal is looking at the hand with rapt attention, and then his eyes snap up to Will, sharp, untrusting, and he waits. In his gaze, remnants of all the layers play, exhaustion and hate and love, cold and violence and longing. Clarice is watching silently behind them.

Hannibal is waiting for him to make a choice, not in the throes of his imagination, but consciously, and he suspects, what he decides will change the course of everything, for all of them. It sounds dramatic in his head, but he does not doubt its truth. He already knows though, what his answer is, had known, he thinks, since the moment he allowed Clarice to remain in his home after she uttered the words  _Doctor Lecter._  Hannibal told him life was a precious thing to waste, and he’s been holding them both dead for too long now. He doesn’t avert his gaze, and he doesn’t avert his eyes, instead he holds himself exactly where he is.

Hannibal’s eyes shut for a moment, as though great pain has overtaken him. Or perhaps he is only hearing the clash of cymbals and the melody of something too great and terrible to ever be played by human hands. Then they’ve snapped open and they’re younger, familiar, once more. He presses his own fingers to his side of the glass.

“I have missed you.” He murmurs in a voice like honey, rich and melodic. It has always been clear how Hannibal has changed Will, but in every way Will revives him now.

The younger man nods. “And you are caught and I have come to visit you.”

\--

Will does not visit again through the course of the investigation and Clarice does not let it pass by without note. But Hannibal becomes suddenly nothing but a helpful fount of information and she becomes too busy putting two and two together to wonder at his absence, despite Hannibal’s abrupt change of demeanor since his appearance. He is politer and kinder, and speaks to her with the air of one inviting someone to tea, rather than discussing murder investigations in a prison cell. He asks her to visit with Will, one afternoon, and with a shrug of her shoulders, she follows his order. It becomes rather an odd life, between immersing herself in murder cases, prodding at Hannibal on some afternoons and helping Will walk the dogs on others. She is content, but not stupid, these days she knows, cannot last.

The night Buffalo Bill is caught, Hannibal Lecter escapes. She finds herself unsurprised by that, and even less so, by the fact that when she pulls up to Will’s driveway, the house is silent and the door is unlocked. Only Winston bounds out to see her, nuzzling against her legs. The other dogs are long gone, she knows, somehow spirited away by a touch of Lecter magic. Her lips curve.

On the counter there is a letter.

_My darling Clarice. **Oh Christ Hannibal, really?**_

_My darling, Clarice. ( It is rude to interrupt my darling Will, Clarice is fond of the endearment.)_

_As I am sure you have surmised, we are no longer quite so near, though we have heard about your achievements on the news and are duly impressed. **(Hannibal always thinks it’s funny to send you off to get shot at).**  We congratulate you on your successes and are sure many more will come as you continue your rise at the Bureau. Jack Crawford must be quite relieved it has all gone so well so this time. And the lambs, I trust, have quieted for the moment._

_We shall, of course, miss your companionship **(and your normalcy)**  but all halcyon days find their ends. **(That we know better than most.)** But in endings, Clarice, there are only beginnings and life is not a thing to waste - especially not yours, as you worm your way from the chrysalis to the sky. We shall miss you and you shall miss us, but fate has a funny sense of humor,  **(Much like Hannibal)** , do not despair and do not forget. In the blink of an eye, change might strike, and everything might be found to be different. We shall all await that blink._

_Yours **(He means, Love,),**_

_Hannibal Lecter_

_P.S. We leave you this letter in trust, though we ask kindly that you burn it, fully aware you could use it to implicate Will in my escape. Please do not do so, that would be terribly rude._

_**P.P.S I’ve left Winston, Clarice. I’ve called an old friend to get him in the evening, if he’s still there, but I think he would be happiest with you. He’s not young anymore and this journey wouldn’t be what was best for him. Don’t forget to tell him I love him always. Love, Will.** _

She laughs, tears streaming down her face. Reads it, reads it again, and then burns it over the kitchen sink.

“Come on Winston.” There’s a nostalgic pit in her stomach, a bittersweetness she can’t fully understand yet, as she imagines them holding hands on a beach, kissing somewhere warm, simply looking at each other in their strange, lovely, way. “Let’s go home.”


End file.
